Manchester City boss Mancini claimed United were fortunate to have such a commanding lead and put it down to the luck of scoring late on in games.

But United boss Fergie turned the tables on Mancini with a sarcastic riposte and told the Italian he was lucky City themselves were not further behind.

“He’s lucky they are only 12 points behind,” said Ferguson.

“Scoring late goals isn’t lucky - we’ve only been doing it for 25 years. It’s a terrible habit.”

And now Fergie has told his players there must be no let-up in the title race and wants them to hammer home their advantage.

Having lost the title on goal difference to City on the final day of last season, he wants to clinch the league by a big margin to put the “nosiy neighbours” firmly in their place.

Although all eyes are on United’s decisive Champions League clash with Real Madrid on Tuesday at Old Trafford, Ferguson has urged his players to open up a 15-point lead on City with victory over Norwich today.

“The league games are even more important because we don’t want to give our immediate opponents an advantage,” said Ferguson.

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On a roll: Sir Alex wants to keep the momentum going

“That accentuates it more for me and that’s why I place so much importance on Norwich because it’s a game we must win.

“The similarities to 1999 are that our FA Cup run was a really hard one and our European ties were really hard.

“We were in a group with Barcelona and Bayern Munich, then we got a quarter-final against Inter Milan and a semi-final against Juventus.

“This year the group stage was okay but we got Real Madrid straight up.

“In the FA Cup we’ve had Premier League teams all the time, which we also experienced in 1999.

“I don’t think the difficult games will be a problem.

“I think we’re looking forward to them, knowing we have to be at our best, as we were in 1999.

“The big difference is we have a stronger squad now than we did back then.”

United won the title by a Premier League record of 18 points back in 2000 and Ferguson wants to win it by some distance again this season, despite having given themselves a considerable margin for error with their big lead.

Ferguson was in Barcelona to watch Real’s 3-1 Copa del Rey win at the Nou Camp and admitted the way Jose Mourinho’s side swept Barca aside had given him much to ponder ahead of Tuesday.

“They were absolutely brilliant and won well with Cristiano Ronaldo, Angel Di Maria and Mesut Ozil on the counter-attack.

“But we always knew that Madrid are one of the best counter-attacking teams in Europe, there’s no question about that.

“That’s what we’ll be up against on Tuesday and that’s why our preparations are centring around making sure their counter-attack doesn’t kill us.”

With the luxury of such a huge lead in the title race, Ferguson is set to rest van Persie, Rio Ferdinand, Rafael, Patrice Evra, Michael Carrick nd keeper David De Gea, to ensure all are fresh and fit to face Madrid.